This invention relates to an inked ribbon (which will be referred to as "ribbon" hereinbelow) operation device in a serial printer and more particularly, to a ribbon operation device in a printer for performing ribbon feed and lifting.
In known serial printers, a ribbon is fixedly secured at the opposite ends thereof to a pair of ribbon shafts rotatably supported on a carriage, and as printing operation proceeds, the ribbon is paid out from one of the ribbon shafts so as to pass across the front of printing means, such as a printing hammer or printing wire, is wound about the other ribbon shaft and is then lowered from the position in the front of the printing means so that the printed area of a printing medium may be visible when the printing operation is interrupted. However, the ribbon winding-up, transfer, lifting and lowering operations have to be performed by separate means, respectively, and thus, known inked ribbon operation devices require a complicated mechanism and are expensive.